©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Executive Committee supports oversight committee
Misspent $10,000 grant is first order of business for the committee
by Pete Mazzaccaro

The Executive Committee of the Chestnut Hill Community Association moved to approve a number of measures that its president Ron Recko hopes will right the wrongs his Second Opinion Caucus was elected to right and to reform the many ways the CHCA does business in the future.

The most significant part of that plan is the formation of a new committee: an ad-hoc oversight committee charged with reviewing past problems at the association that include everything from simple conflicts of interest to what, in a few instances, appears to be fraud. Recko said he believes the committee’s work is vital to the health of the CHCA. “I hope this will become a standing committee,” he said.

That work was previewed at the executive committee meeting by Martha Haley who read a lengthy report she had prepared on what she believes is the squandering of a $10,000 state grant from the Department of Community and Economic Development issued in early 2005 for the purpose of physical improvements to the Chestnut Hill Local’s offices at 8434 Germantown Ave. State Rep. Rosita Youngblood and 9th Ward Democratic Leader John O’Connell facilitated the grant.

Haley read her report to the committee and about 20 other board and community members gathered for the meeting. She said that all the work in the report is supported by documents she had obtained through research since November of last year.

According to Haley, the grant was first applied for by former community manager Marie Lachat. A grant application was sent to Youngblood in January of 2004 requesting $20,000 for office improvements estimated at $46,000. A second letter from Lachat requesting $10,000 for a reduced plan was sent in October of 2004. The terms were accepted and the grant made in early 2005.

The first problem illuminated by Haley’s report was that news of the grant’s arrival at the CHCA took a substantial amount of time to spread to the board. Haley discovered that a $10,000 check was issued and dated February 23, 2005, and that a specific contract issued on March 2005. By that time, Lachat was no longer the community manager and the status of the grant remained unreported in the Local and was not listed in CHCA financials until Haley began to make inquiries in November of 2005, nine months after the check was cut.

However, the failure to report the grant turned out to be much less problematic than what Haley uncovered regarding the grant money’s actual use.

According to application documents for the grant, the $10,000 was supposed to be used to build workstations for the Local. Work included desks, the renovation of office space and the installation of data ports for computers, a specific amount of work estimated at $10,000 and outlined in the state’s March contract.

Documents sent to Harrisburg to account for the grant dollars indicate the entire sum was spent on new carpeting for the building and paint; not one penny was spent as indicated in the March contract. To make matters worse, several receipts sent to Harrisburg appear to have had their address and amount changed with white out, suggesting they were improperly altered. Haley said that she is not sure who altered the receipts. “The question is,” Haley said, “why wasn’t one single Local contracted project done?”

Haley said that the Oversight Committee, if commissioned to do so by the board, will “make every inquiry with the same kind of thoroughness and fairness.”

Commenting on Haley’s report, executive member Jim Foster said the information Haley had collected should have been made available to the whole board through regular channels of communication. “She had information we all should have had,” he said. “Now it appears we didn’t live up to our commitment and worse, we made something up.”

Some board members in attendance were concerned about the scope of the oversight committee:

“How far back will you go?” asked long-time member Joanne Dhody.

Susan Pizzano, the association’s physical division vice president, said, “When I was vice president of the social division, I handled large sums of money. I don’t want [others who have similar responsibility] to feel they should be scrutinized.”

After some discussion, a recommendation to the full board of the CHCA to approve the Oversight Committee was passed.

Remaking the Local Publisher’s Committee

Recko introduced three new members, one of whom will be chair, of the Publisher’s Committee, a group created in 2004 by a change to the association’s bylaws to oversee the Local. The committee’s creation was widely criticized by many board members elected in April of being created for the sole purpose of imposing the association’s will on the Local despite the association’s own rules – the Lentz Policy – securing the paper’s editorial independence.

Recko said his intention was to place newspaper professionals on the committee to help the Local plan.

He nominated board member Ed Feldman, former Local editor Lea Sitton Stanley and Penguin Photo owner Bill Stroud to join the committee. Stroud and Sitton Stanley have many years of experience in the newspaper business and both worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Feldman is a published author and the producer of television shows, including The Furniture Guys. Two members, Douglas Doman and Tom Ivory, were appointed to two-year terms last year.

If approved, Stroud will chair the committee, Recko said.All three nominees were approved by the executive committee and recommended to the full board.

Tree light grant

CHCA treasurer Ned Mitinger reported that the association had received a $15,000 grant to help pay for the installation and repair of holiday lights for Germantown Avenue’s street trees. The lights, white holiday lights, will remain lit year-round.

Board member and Democratic ward leader John O’Connell secured the grant through State Rep. Rosita Youngblood. The whole cost of the job is estimated to be between $20,000 and $30,000, O’Connell said. He expected the CHCA to work with the Chestnut Hill District to complete the project.

Wary of not repeating the same mistakes made in the handling of the $10,000 grant examined by Martha Haley, Mitinger assured all attending the meeting that he would put the light work out to competitive bid.

Commerce Bank petition

Executive committee members Ed Feldman and Jim Foster said they will be circulating a petition calling for the Commerce Bank to adhere to commitments it made the CHCA before it beganm construction at 8600 Germantown Ave. Construction at the bank has been halted by the city’s depertment of Licenses and Inspections because of the bank’s failure to adhere to guidlenies in it’s zoning permit. The issue is scheduled to go before the Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustments, 1515 Arch Street, on Tuesday, July 25. Anyone interested in signing the petition can contact Feldman at 215-248-3090.